<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/livestream-reading-emily-wilsons-translation-odyssey-interview-raffi-barsoumian/"></div>In a <a href="https://oklahomacontemporary.org/performance/the-odyssey">six-day livestream</a> the Oklahoma Contemporary and the <a href="https://kirkpatrickfoundation.com/">Kirkpatrick Foundation</a> have brought together 24 musicians, actors, artists, and public officials to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey. The oral presentation of Homer’s epic poem is a digital recreation of collective listening and considers what it means to find home in an era in which the world is home-bound.
In Wilson’s own words, “The Odyssey emerged from an oral folk poetry tradition in archaic Greece, and it’s a joy to see the poem’s performative roots being honored in 21st century fashion with this virtual live performance.”
In a final conversation about the performance, Armenian-American actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4619746/">Raffi Barsoumian</a> reflects on his reading of book 17 of The Odyssey. Barsoumian was born in Beirut and moved to California with his family as a young child. He has performed in many classical Shakespeare plays, such as Pericles (The Public Theater), King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Henry V (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) and As You Like It (Actor’s Shakespeare Company), and held roles in The Vampire Diaries, Shameless, and The Code.
¤
LARA SCHOORL: In other conversations I have talked about these readings in anticipation of them; you just finished reading your part of this series half an hour ago. I’m very excited to hear about the experience looking back. How was it?
RAFFI BARSOUMIAN: I thought it went well. I didn’t see the audience there so it was hard to tell what the direct response was, but I think it went well. I enjoyed it a lot.
How does it feel to read live to a virtual audience that is invisible, located on their computers and possibly thousands of miles away from you. It seems very different from your experience of performing on stage but perhaps more similar to acting for a television show.
Zoom has, as of recently, been a kind of practice; doing readings and knowing that there’s people on the other end listening. This one felt more like a live performance because you know they are broadcasting it live, and people are receiving it in the moment. But, it remains a faith-based exercise.
Although widely diverse, it seems as though every reader has a connection to The Odyssey, through its form, presentation, translation, influence or adaptions. Could you talk about your classical background and how or if that influenced your reading tonight? 
I like Shakespeare plays and have pursued working on Shakespeare plays and working with Shakespeare companies. That has formed the bulk of my experience of familiarizing myself with classical texts — learning how to read them, understand them and perform them over the years. That’s how my experience and facility with classical texts has developed. Jeremiah Davis, the artistic director of Oklahoma Contemporary, actually reached out to me about this marathon reading after seeing me in a production of Macbeth.
Another thing that comes to mind is that Emily Wilson has done this translation in blank verse which is so impressive. Shakespeare’s plays are in blank verse, so looking and seeing this translation of The Odyssey written in this standard classical English form, from my eye anyway, it is immediately recognizable. As I was reading Wilson’s text, I was thinking if I could apply any rules from the Shakespeare world to this. Her language is obviously a lot more contemporary sounding, which I think is a service she’s done for the text. It feels and reads in my experience very much more modern. There was a little bit of that from my practice that I was drawing from while preparing for tonight’s reading.
Within our personal speech we all have our own language, yet I am not sure that we are all aware of the various registers of language that we use and when we use them. I think that you, and others who use and perform with their voices professionally will be more aware of that. Akin, perhaps, to how people were more aware of that during Homer’s time when most communication was spoken instead of written.
We are living through a pandemic; we are robbed of live performance. We cannot go to the theater. It is interesting how the online space is trying to fill that void. Although, it is in a way, taking us back, because the visual is so limited. You are looking at someone’s living room, and someone is just sitting there, so it does revert to an other world aural experience. I was thinking about that particularly. It is almost like a radio play because you sit and listen, we’re not dramatizing it. It has an interesting quality. I have this feeling that cinema and television are more and more moving us away from oral transmission, and that visual storytelling is more the medium of our day. So it is very interesting to tap back into that oral culture with this reading of The Odyssey.
Do you think that The Odyssey has gained or can gain new meaning in this moment?
Sure, we are in a moment right now where we are trying to tap back into what we know, what used to be us, knowing we cannot go back to before the pandemic. Maybe a little like Odysseus trying to get back home. But yes, I imagine it must. There is a reason these classical texts live on and partially that may be because their narratives tap into some elemental truth about us and so every new context in every new era reflects something from these texts. It would be a good question for the people who have listened to the whole arc and see what they drew from it. You know, unless you are very young most of us have had some contact with the text or the story. I have not seen the text since high school but it lives there, I remember episodes. One thing I remembered before getting back into the book that really stuck with me was the moment when Odysseus comes back home, it is his dog who remembers him. That always stayed with me, it was such a sad, poignant moment. Coincidentally, this moment happens in the book I was assigned to read.
What was also interesting is that there was a part in my section in which they talk about being a slave. It says something like “you have to listen to the word of your master or they’ll reproach you.” There is this one line: “Zeus halves our value on the day that makes us slaves.” The story is dealing with a culture where people are born into servitude and others are lords. That is sort of a given, but it is hard to read that in an American context today. How do you hold that?
Yes even to speak some of those words now, we don’t. They were so trivial but carry so much weight now. As we are implementing change today, I has also proven pertinent to reevaluate our language.
<div class="at-below-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/livestream-reading-emily-wilsons-translation-odyssey-interview-raffi-barsoumian/"></div>

Livestream Reading of Emily Wilson&#8217;s Translation of The Odyssey: An Interview with Raffi Barsoumian

Livestream Reading of Emily Wilson&#8217;s Translation of The Odyssey: An Interview with Raffi Barsoumian

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/livestream-reading-emily-wilsons-translation-odyssey-interview-lee-ranaldo/"></div>In a <a href="https://oklahomacontemporary.org/performance/the-odyssey">six-day livestream</a> the Oklahoma Contemporary and the <a href="https://kirkpatrickfoundation.com/">Kirkpatrick Foundation</a> have brought together 24 musicians, actors, artists, and public officials to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey. The oral presentation of Homer’s epic poem is a digital recreation of collective listening and considers what it means to find home in an era in which the world is home-bound.
In Wilson’s own words, “The Odyssey emerged from an oral folk poetry tradition in archaic Greece, and it’s a joy to see the poem’s performative roots being honored in 21st century fashion with this virtual live performance.”
Coming from a different angle, but as a musician no stranger to oral traditions, <a href="http://www.leeranaldo.com/">Lee Ranaldo</a> is featured to read from The Odyssey Saturday, August 29. Ranaldo is a founding member of Sonic Youth, a writer and visual artist. Across the various facets of his career literature and collaboration have always had a leading role.
¤
LARA SCHOORL: How were you introduced to The Odyssey and this translation by Emily Wilson in particular?
LEE RANALDO: The Odyssey is a story so many people are familiar with. I read it in high school and it is not until now that I am reading it again, but I have encountered it or adaptions and fragments of it throughout the years. Many of the themes in The Odyssey, such as being lost and concepts of home, are themes we can relate to. Especially now when were sort of locked into our homes, it becomes a metaphor, in a way, for finding yourself, your roots, your background. Acknowledging where you came from. I mean, there are so many levels to it. The story itself is one of these archetypical stories that we have probably been told many different times, with different characters. It has influenced many. I’m thinking of Joyce’s Ulysses, and other works of art. The things about these stories is that everyone can relate to them. I really like Emily Wilson’s translation — it is down to earth and not so esoteric as some of the older translations can be.
More readers have commented on the accessibility of Wilson’s translation, its clarity and to the point language. I was just listening to the first readers of today’s books, and found, in addition to the content the live reading, the fact that I was being read to by someone invited me into the narrative differently. It was very comfortable. Many of us were read to by our parents as children, my partner sometimes will read to me, but it does not often happen in adult life that someone reads to us in the moment. I wonder, as a musician and singer, does the oral transfer of words hold a specific communicative power for you?
You know it is true, and that is what makes someone reading to you so meaningful. It has an intimate quality. And, going all the way to antiquity a lot of these stories were shared orally, they were like songs or incantations. These early epic poems have a lyrical quality to them.
In music there is a theatrical aspect connected to using your voice. When you’re talking to someone in a supermarket line parking lot or walking down the street it is conversation, but when you’re on stage, whether you’re singing or speaking, a different relationship is going on there. It’s more formal, it’s more theatrical the way I think of it. In the sense that, on the one hand, listening to a performance, harkens back to our childhood, to when someone’s reading us a story, but it also points back to all the great works on stage­ — when you’re sitting in an audience listening to people talk or recite work and putting it together in your head. It is both very simple and very sophisticated.
Following that thought and these distinctions of the manifestations and usage of texts, in your work do you start with text, and if so, in a written form or otherwise? 
It happens in all different ways. Sometimes it starts with something written. Either a written sketch, or something written out completely. And, sometimes it happens from just strumming some chords on a guitar and the words just kind of come to you. It’s the mood of what you’re playing, the instrument, guitar or piano that you’re playing. It comes in all different ways. I have made songs from things I have written for quite a long time, and then I’ve been spontaneous in other situations just reacting to the music that I am hearing and starting to add it together and slowly things form out of it. Especially these days when you can record yourself and listen to in back and improve on it.
What are your thoughts on this live collaborative reading in advance of your performance?
This live reading of The Odyssey is spread over a long period of time, six days, and I have wondered how many people listen to the whole series or just to individual parts of it. The thing about this story, that I really understood more as I was going through the text, is that it is so episodic. Like one of those Saturday morning series, you can tune in for a chapter and be taken away. The chapters are kind of short stories and if you listen to the whole thing it adds up to something that is this entire book, but you can also experience them separately. That is what makes this so marvelous. There are so many ways in which you can approach it. Hearing a fraction of it might give someone the impetus to read the whole book later. That is what it is doing for me. I am studying the chapter that I am reading, which is Book 21, but I am really looking forward to reading the other books.
One other thing I loved is that in the book Odysseus is trying to get home to the city of Ithaca, and my younger son is going to university in Ithaca, NY. We went last week to drop him off and then when I returned home the book came in with the mail. Aside from being namesakes I’ll have to look if there’s a connection between the two cities.
<div class="at-below-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/livestream-reading-emily-wilsons-translation-odyssey-interview-lee-ranaldo/"></div>

Livestream Reading of Emily Wilson&#8217;s Translation of The Odyssey: An Interview with Lee Ranaldo

Livestream Reading of Emily Wilson&#8217;s Translation of The Odyssey: An Interview with Lee Ranaldo

okc-cover

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/livestream-reading-emily-wilsons-translation-odyssey-interview-bethany-joy-collins/"></div>In a <a href="https://oklahomacontemporary.org/performance/the-odyssey">six-day livestream</a> the Oklahoma Contemporary and the <a href="https://kirkpatrickfoundation.com/">Kirkpatrick Foundation</a> have brought together 24 musicians, actors, artists, and public officials to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey. The oral presentation of Homer’s epic poem is a digital recreation of collective listening and considers what it means to find home in an era in which the world is home-bound.
In Wilson’s own words, “The Odyssey emerged from an oral folk poetry tradition in archaic Greece, and it’s a joy to see the poem’s performative roots being honored in 21st century fashion with this virtual live performance.”
<a href="https://bethanyjoycollins.com/home.html">Bethany Joy Collins</a>, one of the featured marathon readers, is a Chicago-based artist. Collins uses language as both the material and subject matter of her practice, not only engaging with the meaning in and of the texts that she studies — such as historical newspaper publications, Webster’s New World Dictionary, The Southern Review, and patriotic lyrics — but also with the duality of this system, its necessity, failures and also its physicality through repetition, erasure and play. A particular text she has been working with is The Odyssey and its various translations, including Emily Wilson&#8217;s.
¤
LARA SCHOORL: What is your relationship to The Odyssey; how did you become part of this marathon reading?
BETHANY JOY COLLINS: Right after the 2016 presidential election, I added a lot of post-apocalyptic literature to my reading list. I wanted to know how different people named or described the end of the world, so I could have the language of that moment for myself. Eventually, I realized that post-apocalyptic literature was not exactly the work that I needed and came across Emily Wilson&#8217;s beautifully efficient translation of The Odyssey. This ancient text of exile and homecoming and strangeness among intimates felt right. In my work, I&#8217;m comparing translations specifically from Book 13 of The Odyssey which tells of Odysseus&#8217; homecoming. When after 20 years away, a decade spent searching for his homeland, he finally stands on the shoreline of his own country, and does not recognize the place. Which felt like a way to describe that post-election moment for me, when the country felt somehow familiar and estranging at the same time.
You are right, The Odyssey is a story of being lost, not only literally in losing one’s way from A to B but also personally. Perhaps even more so than in 2016, the feeling of being lost is omnipresent now. I am thinking of translation now as also a process of losing. In translation, some may say, a part of the original is lost while trying to maintain it or be in proximity to it. In a way it seems as though we are going to a similar process; getting lost in our current world as a result of the upcoming presidential election, a pandemic and an ongoing fight for social justice in order to imagine it anew. 
As the next election draws near, I&#8217;m looking more at utopian literature than post-apocalyptic, and thinking about the imaginative possibility of a different world. I just finished reading Toni Morrison’s Paradise where every garden is an idea of utopia — one among many. The idea of utopia, especially presented by Black authors, Black writers, is never perfect. By definition, utopia requires that someone will always be included and excluded. Imagining a new world also feels, not hopeful, but like a brave move or a necessary tactic to consider what else is possible for us. It is not about hope — as I&#8217;m often asked in interviews — but about imagining that something else might be feasible.
Your work around The Odyssey and other text is mostly visual, or its presentation is. What do you think about this reading as an oral presentation of this text in relation to your own practice?
One of the core tenets of my practice is adopting texts that feel unwieldy or problematic and then enacting a labor intensive process to deconstruct and gain control over it. My Noise series, for example, started with problematic texts about race and identity and then morphed into love lyrics from patriotic hymns. I would write these problem texts again and again until my hand hurt and only then I knew that I could leave, that I could walk away from that language. These processes of pain make the text manifest in the body and eventually result in a kind of mastery over the text. The body transforms language. Reading aloud is much like song — we are entering the text and language is transformed through the body, but without pain.
I grew up in a Presbyterian church in Montgomery, Alabama and used to participate in their 72-hour Bible readings. You would sign up for your hour, noon, or 3 a.m. and read from the pulpit, hoping someone would relieve you at 4 a.m. Whether sacred text or The Odyssey, what I find beautiful about this shared reading, is the idea that a text is considered worthy of being read back into the world even if no one is there to listen. That feels much like our democracy right now.
I think it is interesting to have this endurance reading now and bring an ancient text into our world. There is a beginning and end to these readings, but that does not matter so much. Rather, it reminds me of the beginning of Wilson’s translation: “Now goddess, child of Zeus, / tell the old story for our modern times. / Find the beginning.”
<div class="at-below-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/interviews/livestream-reading-emily-wilsons-translation-odyssey-interview-bethany-joy-collins/"></div>

Livestream Reading of Emily Wilson&#8217;s Translation of The Odyssey: An Interview with Bethany Joy Collins

Livestream Reading of Emily Wilson&#8217;s Translation of The Odyssey: An Interview with Bethany Joy Collins

Glenn Gould’s Chair

Lara Schoorl is a writer and art historian from the Netherlands and lives in Los Angeles. Her writing can be found in&nbsp;Flash Art Magazine,&nbsp;LALA Magazine,&nbsp;The Huffington Post,&nbsp;FOUNDATIONS,&nbsp;and is forthcoming with&nbsp;De Internet Gids.&nbsp;She is the editor of&nbsp;Institutional Garbage&nbsp;(The Green Lantern Press, 2018).&nbsp;(Author photo by Isabella Rozendaal.)

Lara Schoorl

No Coda: On Mandy Kahn’s “Glenn Gould’s Chair”

"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." — Frank Zappa

Art &amp; Architecture

"I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry." — John Cage